Chapter 3

Quick review answering to a guest:
From: Ghostalker (Guest)

Ghostalker:Hey Tac, love your stories, hope to see more of this one. One quick question though, how long will it take your character to realize that Duck Tape is pretty much a strip of cloth with glue on the front and a waterproof back? Also, I liked how you used Fallout 4's Ballistic Weave as the bullet proofing of your vest/suit. They only use the carbon-ceramic plates in real life because most bullets these days are tear-dropped shaped to maximize the use of the rifling in most guns these days and penetrating armor, where as in the One Piece universe they are still using ball ammunition. The weave can handle a good amount of that.

First off, Ghostalker, if you had actually wanted an answer, why didn't you sign in? I can't respond if you don't sign in.

Now, in regards to your question: 'I' don't need to realize that my Devil Fruit can manipulate duck tape, I'm already aware. The reason why you haven't seen me use it yet is both a matter of control and its makeup. First off, off the top of my head without rewatching the first mythbusters' duck tape episode, the silver stuff only has about 87 pounds tensile strength meaning that I won't be able to use it to go swing around trees like I could with a cloth grapple. Now, I COULD just make a bunch of strands that are together but that would take more time than I would currently have while swinging through the trees. Now, the reason why it isn't used in any traps is because of the sticky side. My traps are mostly BURIED in sand which means that they would pick up a LOT of sand and it would be harder to smooth them out if I tried to fold any tape sheets. Basically, tape doesn't have any FULLY offensive uses at this moment until I can get much better with using my fruit. Once I get to the point where I can rapidly produce multiple strips of tape together without messing up what I'm creating though THEN I could begin using it for capture purposes and other things.

Hope that answers your question. Now, onto the story!

Story Start: 8:55 AM

I had a simple but elegant solution for determining where the Straw Hats were going to land. In the center of the island, I had constructed a tower ten feet taller than the tallest tree on the island and was sweeping the surrounding ocean with my three segment telescope in ten minute intervals. It had been a good control exercise since I had to tightly roll various lengths of cloth into sturdy 'logs' which I had then secured via sheets of duct tape wrapped around them. The result was a sturdy platform that barely even shook when I had fell to the temptation of giving a couple of short hops on the top platform of cloth stretched over the four corners.

I had started my sweeps at roughly 8:20, the tower having been a relatively quick affair to build once I had gotten the design aspect down. For all that it had tasted absolutely Primus damned HORRIBLE when I ate it, I sincerely LOVED my devil fruit! I was just slowly sweeping the part of the ocean that if my camp was twelve o'clock this would be nine o'clock when I spotted a Caravel sized ship roughly four miles out from the coast. A couple of minutes later, I grinned as I saw the Jolly Roger of a straw hat wearing skull and cross bones on the mainsail. It looked like I was finally going to meet my future crew.

Using my devil fruit powers in order to begin shortening the tower supports from the bottom up, I idly considered just how I should do this. I had been considering it ever since the first week but I had FAR too many ideas. Do I go with a quick net trap ala Star Wars Episode Six and 'run across' the crew that way, meet them on the beach right out of the gate, 'come across' them while I made Spiderman proud as I traveled the tree tops? Decisions, decisions. As the last of the tower vanished, I shook my head and said to myself "I guess It all depends on if they're in the woods by the time I get to them or not."

So saying, I shot a cloth grapple at the nearest tree branch that could support not only my weight but the force of the grapple retracting to bring me up to it. Soon as I was close enough, I grabbed the branch and pushed myself up like I was getting out of the pool before I swung my legs forward under the branch. Swinging around the circular branch gave me the momentum I needed to begin grapple swinging through the trees and I made sure to have my Observation Haki up as I made my way to the coast. I wouldn't have been able to do both at the same time when I was first learning Observation Haki but thankfully about three months of practice allowed me to grapple ONLY the tree branches that could handle the strain. There had been quite a few close calls when a branch had snapped like a much smaller twig before I worked out THAT particular trick.

I actually met someone going the other way like this. A loud "YAAHOO!" came from the beach head and not ten seconds later, a black haired teenager wearing sandals, shorts, an open red vest, and a straw hat on his head came looping towards me with his arms stretching. Clearly, he too was a Devil Fruit User as well. We saw each other at the same time and his already big grin grew as he adjusted his angle to land on a sturdy branch as he said with literal stars in his eyes "Wow, that's so cool! My name's Luffy, what's yours?!"

I shifted my own course to land on the tree next to his and withdrew my grapple, making it form into a hand as I brought it over and sent it towards him as I said "Name's Matt, though I also go by Tac. Cloth-Cloth Fruit User, you?"

Luffy eagerly gripped the cloth hand and shook it with a grin as he said "Gomu-Gomu Fruit, I'm a Rubber Man!" He pulled at the corner of his lips with his free hand and stretched the side of his mouth out by a full foot before letting it snap back.

"Huh." I said blinking at the sight of that supposedly impossible biological feat before I grinned and said "Going by the hat on your head, and the Jolly Roger I spotted on your ship as you came in, I'm going to assume it's safe to say that you're the captain?"

"Shishishi, that's right! I'm going to be the Pirate King!" Luffy said with a grin.

I felt something at his words thanks to my Observation Haki and I cocked my head with narrowed eyes for a moment before I shrugged my shoulders and said "That's a pretty lofty goal you've set for yourself, not to mention a rather dangerous one as well."

"Shishishishishishi, yeah, the adventures are going to be awesome!" He said with a closed eye grin before he suddenly snapped them open and said "Hey, I know, join my Crew!"

I gave a single blink and barely heard my own idle thought of 'Well that was far easier than I thought it would be.' The thought was barely heard due to three people who I had noticed coming up from behind Luffy on the forest floor screaming a unanimous "WHAT?!"

Luffy unfortunately HADN'T noticed them and the shout startled him enough that he lost his footing and fell to the ground. I WOULD have been worried about him if I didn't know he had a devil fruit but that combined with my knowledge that the people of this world were naturally a bit stronger than where I was from kept me calm. The red headed girl who began roughly shaking Luffy had me slightly concerned though as she yelled out "DON'T JUST GO AROUND ASKING RANDOM STRANGERS TO JOIN YOU IGNORAMIUS MORON!"

I briefly considered going for the subtle approach before I shrugged and with a throwaway thought of 'Ah screw it!' I called down to her "Actually, the whole reason why I've been on this island for the last six months was to join the Straw Hat Pirates."

That had all four of said pirates snapping their heads up to look at me with incredulous looks, and the girl said "What? But that's impossible! We only made our flag a day ago, and we haven't even known Luffy for a full month yet! How could you possibly have known that we would come to this island six months in advance?!"

I grinned and said "Let's just say for now that it involves a deal with a deity level being." Dropping down to the ground and landing in a crouch, I stood up and said "Let's bring your ship around the island so that way it's by my base camp and I can give you a proper explanation."

It took some doing, mostly because the rest of the crew thought that I was obviously crazy and they should leave the island before they were infected but eventually their ship was anchored in front of my camp and I had four cloth and duct tape chairs made for them while I leaned against a tree, the letters left by the ROB along with my phone and 3DS XL for further proof in my pockets in case they were needed. Idly scratching my cheek, I said "Alright, let's start with the basics of my situation, do any of you know what the multiverse theory is?"

Seeing all four shake their heads, I said "Alright, here's the technical definition: The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of finite and infinite possible universes, including the universe in which we live. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. In layman's terms, this means that there are more universes out there than just the one we are living in, some radically different with completely different rules that its inhabitants have to live by, others where the only difference between them and ours is a single choice someone made. For instance, here you could have chosen to have chocolate ice cream while in the next one over you could have had vanilla. Basically, anything that could happen, has happened somewhere, even supposed works of fiction that would be impossible in one realm has happened in another."

"Oh, so it's a mystery verse!" Luffy said pounding fist into palm with a nod of understanding.

Nami, Ussopp, and Zorro all groaned at that while I blinked before shrugging and said "Pretty much, where I came from it's only a Theory with no way to actually prove it. Well, there WAS no way to prove it but unfortunately I don't think I can tell the Big Brains back home that they were right."

"Wait, are you saying that you're from another universe?!" Nami asked in clear disbelief.

I inclined my head in agreement before I formed a globe out of cloth and began rotating it along with a miniature moon as well and said "This is my Earth. It's got only one moon and is roughly 70% ocean with seven main continents and about oh, maybe a thousand islands, 443 with a land area of 970 square miles or more and at least 335 whose land area ranges from 190 to 970 scare miles. Everything else in that number are pretty much just thin strips of land with a few palm trees on them or just above water reefs and volcanos." Dismissing the globe, I continued to a more relevant bit of information and said "Where I come from the events of this world is one of the most popular stories, it had actually been on its twentieth year when I left."

"Really?!" Luffy and Ussopp asked with stars in their eyes.

"Yep." I said cheerfully before I grew solemn, immediately making all of the others, even Luffy, suddenly stiffen. Sighing, I said "I don't like thinking about the events that lead to me meeting the being who brought me here, so instead, I'm going to show you." Cloth flowed away from me and formed a miniature highway in front of the group. As cars made out of cloth began rolling down it, I said "These are the main form of land transport in my world, they're called cars if you're interested. Anyway, they can reach high speeds, some up to over two hundred miles per hour, though the speed limits are usually set between thirty and seventy miles per hours. Still, even with those relatively slow speeds, accidents can happen. And when they do on highways, you get this…"

The four watched the accident happen with rapt attention. Three of them grew rather distressed when they saw the final moments where I was slammed into my truck while trying to save the life of another. Zoro seemed unphased though I noticed a slight tightness in his eyes for a moment, and only because I happened to be looking in his direction at the time.

I studied the figure pinned to the red truck for a moment before I shook my head and got rid of the scene as I said "I should have died that day, and technically, I did."

That made Nami and Luffy flinch while Ussopp shakily pointed a finger at me with wide eyes as he said "A-are you telling me you're a g-g-g-ghost?!"

I shrugged and said "I died in my old world, there's just no way my body would have survived being crushed between two vehicles like that, not to mention the blow to my head at the end, but here I'm still physically solid. I eat, sleep, perform bodily functions. Take it as you well."

"As interesting as that is, I'm more interested in what happened next, you mentioned someone brought you here?" Zoro asked trying to get to the important part of why I had been brought here to join THEIR crew.

I nodded and said "When the crashes started happening, we had an audience of sorts. A R.O.B., short for Random Omnipotent Being, had been watching. He saw my actions and apparently feeling rather bored thought that I could provide him with some entertainment and made me a deal. The bare basics of the deal were that he would send me to a world where the events of the story, titled One Piece, if you're curious would happen and make it so that way I would meet you guys, and he even gave me the choice of three Devil Fruits, Air Logia, Lemur Zoan, or Cloth Paramecia. In exchange though, he took all of my memories of the story line, leaving only the same world knowledge that a native would have."

"He took your memories?!" Luffy asked, shooting to his feet with an outraged look on his face and his hands clenched so hard into fists that his hands shook.

"Whoa! Easy there Luffy!" I said holding a hand up and tried to calm him down as I said "Considering that I would have been dead if he didn't do this, I considered it a pretty good trade off. Besides, this R.O.B. seems rather agreeable to negotiation and I managed to sweeten the deal somewhat."

"Oh? And how did you 'sweeten the deal'?" Nami asked with a smile.

"First off, I got him to agree to drop me off on an island in the East Blue where you guys WOULD find me. Second, he allowed me to remember the name of your crew. And third, when he dropped me off on this island, he left me with a proper knife and a pallet full of duct tape." I said counting off my fingers before I grinned and said "Apparently the way I said my request for the last part amused him and he not only agreed to the requests, he upgraded my phone to have infinite battery and WiFi signal, not that I expect you guys to know what that means." I pulled my phone out of my pocket and held it up for them to see.

Putting it back in my pocket, I said "Once I got here, I found this letter on top of the pallet of tape." I pulled out the first letter and handed it over to Nami who pulled it out of the envelope and the three guys crowded around her shoulders to read it.

Once they had read the letter, Ussopp let out an impressed whistle and said "Man, spending six months on an uninhabited island, that is badass!" He then grinned at me and said "Hey, you think you can let me try this Invisibility Cloak you got?!"

I shrugged and pulled the cloth out of the pocket it was in, splitting a portion off and making it grow into the original size before I tossed it over and said "Knock yourself out."

Ussopp let out a whoop and flung the cloak around his body, leaving only his head visible he crowed something about the Great Captain Ussopp being able to sneak past anyone only for Luffy to rip the cloak off and try it. That devolved into a furious scrabble along the beach as each tried to claim the cloak. Watching them, I could FEEL a sweat drop forming on the back of my head and said "Uh, they do realize that with my Devil Fruit I could just make a second one right?"

The two didn't hear me since their struggles had taken them a few hundred feet away by this time but Nami let out an explosive sigh and said "Doubt it, they can be such idiots." She then seemed to shift personalities as she batted her eyelashes at me and said "But I wouldn't mind if you made me one as well."

"Later, once the story's done." I promised her before I looked back at the fighting Captain and Sniper. Seeing that they were over a cloth trap, I connected to it and the sand exploded as the cloth shot out of it and wrapped around the two. A little bit of cloth manipulation had the two separated in large 'fists' of cloth and they shot back to our position. I reclaimed the cloak as it floated over and said "Enough you two, I haven't finished the story yet, if you both want one so badly, I'll make you both a cloak." That got them to settle down and when I released them, they instantly went back to their seats. I gave Zoro an inquisitive look and said "Do you want one as well since all of the rest of us will have one?"

Zoro visibly considered it before he nodded and said "It could be helpful to escape from the Marines if we had to."

I nodded at that and said "Moving on, I spent the first day here making sure I had everything to survive. When I was younger, I was part of a group called the Boy Scouts of America. It and its counterpart the Girl Scouts of America were civic groups that on top of helping out the community put a strong emphasis on camping and wilderness survival. This coupled with knowledge from one of my favorite tv shows meant that I knew what I had to do to survive out here. First thing I did was use the plastic wrapped around the pallet of tapes and some of said tape to make that Solar Still over there for long term water collection." The group followed my nod at where the Still was still set up. I planned to bring the plastic and collection cup with me when we left and add a duct tape basin for it so that way we could use it out at sea. If the calculating look Nami gave it was any indication, she too had similar plans.

"Once that was made, I made a quick bit of shelter out of tape then went in search of fresh water since while the solar still is a constant method of collecting fresh water so long as it has salt water to work with, the process is rather slow. Once I had enough fresh water and a basket of nuts and berries, I called it a night. The second day, I ate my Devil Fruit. As I'm sure Luffy will agree with me, I have NEVER tasted anything that disgusting before." Luffy nodded matching my disgusted look and stuck out his tongue with a heartfelt "Eugh!" Shaking myself from that memory, I continued "Once I had my Devil Fruit, I began training it along with Observation Haki and Armament Haki, two skills that pretty much everyone and their grandmother can use in the second half of the Grand Line. Don't worry, I'll teach you guys and any other crewmates we have as well. A month later, a pirate crew came ashore and I did a bit of trading with them, mending and changing anything made out of cloth for some useful supplies. A month and a half after that, I found the bullet proof vest that letter mentions, and yes, I'll make you guys vests as well. It really came in handy when another pirate crew came upon the island four months into my training. Suffice to say, they were NOT nice. I managed to send them packing though after I broke most of the crew's legs. A few weeks ago, the first crew came back and we did some more trading. After that, it was just more training until you guys showed up today."

"Sounds like you'd make a good addition to the crew." Zoro said with a grin that he had made when I mentioned breaking the bones of the hostile crew.

"It WOULD save us a lot of money to have someone capable of manipulating cloth with us, repaired sails and clothes, new clothing for free…" Nami said trailing off at the end happily.

"You get the first five free, after that I'm charging you a hundred beri per article." I said.

"That's still several fractions cheaper!" Nami chirped, yes chirped happily.

"I've got a few ideas dealing with that invisibility cloth of his." Ussopp said musingly.

Luffy laughed happily as he said "Shishishishi, then it's decided, we have a new crew member!"

The other three voiced their agreement before Nami turned serious and said "Uh, just one thing Matt. Do you have any other proof about your story? It's just that for all we know, you made this letter by yourself and you had your Devil Fruit before you got here." At the looks she was getting from the male members of her crew, she huffed and said "I'm not doubting him, but you have to admit that the thought of him coming from another world is pretty hard to believe."

I gave a dismissive wave and said "No worries, I understand." That said, I mused on what I could do before I grinned and said "I know, I think you guys are going to like this." Pulling my phone back out, a screen of cloth formed with two bowls of cloth on either side and a 'cable' of cloth soon connected with my phone which I put on a cloth stand even as I went through my TV show archives. A dome of translucent cloth began forming overhead putting all of us into shade as I said happily "I figured out this trick three days ago, I call it my Cloth Theatre."

Finding what I wanted, I pushed Play on my screen and formed a fifth cloth seat next to Zoro as the screen changed colors to show a moving picture of a space station hanging in orbit and sound began coming out of the cloth speakers as they vibrated in JUST the right way.

"It circles the planet sixteen times a day three hundred and fifty kilometers above our heads. The International space station is the largest man made object in the sky, and is home to ten astronauts. They are carrying out experiments to investigate how life might be moved off the planet. Such work may one day allow us to colonize the moon, or even Mars. Four land mark space craft lie behind the success of the International Space Station, at the heart of each structure lies a technological breakthrough that allowed engineers to build bigger stations. One by one, traveling up the scale, we'll reveal the stories behind these incredible machines. Five ingenious leaps forward, that enabled space stations to grow from big, to bigger, into the world's biggest."

The title screen played showing the words Big, Bigger, and Biggest forming out of a single block like a Transformer in a Michael Bay movie, and a glance to my side showed that everyone including Zoro was watching eagerly.

Exactly forty six minutes and forty one seconds later, Nami said "Alright, I'm convinced."

"That was awesome!" Ussopp and Luffy shouted, the stars in their eyes easily making the cloth overhead useless in keeping the area shaded.

"Hmph, I'll admit it was somewhat interesting." Zoro allowed, though he had a small grin on his face that had grown a quarter of the way into the episode.

"Ne, ne, Matt! What else do you have?!" Luffy asked and I considered for a moment before I nodded and said "Alright, I'll show you guys one of my favorite shows. It deals with an incredibly famous ship that took part in World War II seventy three years ago."

Both Luffy and Ussopp eagerly bounced in their seats as I switched shows to Battle 360 and energetic music that automatically spoke of bad ass things to come began playing while an announcer said "USS Enterprise, AKA the Big E. A fighting city of steel. She is the most revered and decorated ship of World War II. On this three hundred and sixty degree battlefield, where threats loom, on the seas, in the skies, and in the ocean depths. The Enterprise's enemies could be anywhere, and everywhere. Now, follow this sea bound band of brothers through four years of hell. From Pearl Harbor, to the doorstep of Japan. There's nowhere to run, when the battle is all around you. Battle 360, USS Enterprise, Call to Duty."

Ten hours later, a much bigger screen showed the last of the tenth episode, Luffy having insisted that we watch all ten episodes, not that I blamed him, I loved that show. After the third episode though, we had to have lunch so I had made the Cloth Theater even bigger so that way we could watch and listen to it at a distance while we prepared lunch. Luffy and Ussopp had hung onto every word of the show, cheered and mourned equally at the appropriate parts. Even Zoro had watched them all attentively, though he hid his interest much better than the other two males.

Nami got up from where she had been laying on the beach using a cloth to keep the sand off of her with a groan and a stretch as she said "I'll admit, that had been interesting." She then frowned as she said "Of course, we were SUPPOSED to be gathering supplies today. Guess we'll just have to stay here for the night and get the supplies tomorrow." She gave me an apologetic look and said "Sorry Matt."

"Eh, it's fine, I've been here for six months, I can wait another night to leave." I said with a dismissive wave from where I was securing the new tub for the Solar Still on the back of the Going Merry's deck. While the others had watched the show, I had stowed all of my supplies in the men's quarters and added my water containers and food to their storage areas.

It came as no surprise to me that since the Merry was anchored off the shore that Luffy demanded a giant bon fire for the night. In order to keep him from stripping the island its trees I kept the massive thing going with large logs of cloth. It seemed like a waste of the material to me, but I'd rather not leave this island missing half of its trees so I kept that to myself.

Despite the late night, Nami had us up at 7 the next morning. After a quick breakfast where I found out that Luffy loved to grab everything on the table, even if it was on our plates, I lead the way to the stream where I had filled my water containers during my stay on the island, the others following with most of us with a barrel on our backs. I say most of us because Zoro had two barrels, one for each shoulder, and Nami was carrying personal sized containers that hung from a strap on her shoulder.

Once all of the water was back on the Going Merry, Nami gave me a quick overview of the terminology of the ship before she had Zoro raise the anchor and then we began making our way away from the island. As we sailed away from what had been my home for the last six months, I gave it one last look before I turned my gaze out to sea. I was finally on my way to the greatest adventure of my life.

END

Author's Notes: Update Schedule and Poll on my profile. Please look at the Poll, it may be a new one.

And we are off into the wide blue yonder, and for SOME reason, I'm now hearing the song Anchors Aweigh right now. I've decided that this island replaces the animal one with that guy in the chest in case any of you are wondering, so we'll be making our way for the Baratie next.